As Utah State and Tulane walked into the locker rooms for the halftime break in the opening Lowcountry bracket game of the Charleston Classic, nothing separated the teams. The score stood 40-40 after the first 20 minutes of college basketball.
The two sides had gotten to those 40 points in very different ways. Tulane was raining down 3-pointers, making 7 of 14 attempts from distance, to help its offense along. Utah State scored 30 of its points in the paint, led by Mason Falslev who had scored nearly all of hits 14 first-half points at or near the rim.
That the game was tied was certainly no disaster, but the Aggies were favored to win the game by double figures (-10.5 on the Vegas spread). Many of Utah State’s Mountain West peers have fallen victim to teams they were favored to win by wide margins. Not quite four days ago, the preseason conference favorite San Diego State lost in double-overtime at home to Troy. Guarantees weren’t going to fall into USU’s lap in Charleston.
Utah State had done well to keep pace with the Green Wave’s red-hot first half; the Aggies shot 58% from the field themselves and had cooked up a 6-0 run to end the half so that they could go into the break with the comfort of a tie and not a multi-possession deficit. They had also out-rebounded Tulane 20-11. But even with those positives, Utah State needed changes in several areas. Most particular were to have fewer turnovers on offense, hit more 3-pointers, and keep Tulane from staying hot from three in the second half.
To make a long story short, Utah State did all three to a high degree. The result? A 56-35 second-half advantage to the Aggies who took home a 96-75 victory for their efforts.
While you could find some negatives for Utah State’s offense in the first half, you’d have to really nitpick problems in the second. The Aggies had eight turnovers in the first half and shot 2-for-9 from three. Those put a damper on an otherwise solid showing offensively. But in the second half, Utah State had only two turnovers and made 10 of 14 from outside the arc. And while points in the paint took a dip in volume (*only* 14 in the second half), efficiency never did. The team finished the afternoon with field goal percentage of 77.8% on shots around the rim.
The impact of that near-perfect offense was dang near immediate. Utah State surged to a 53-48 lead by the first media timeout of the second half.
Drake from ｄｏｗｎｔｏｗｎ#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/DjdaAqEmqu
— USU Men’s Hoops (@USUBasketball) November 21, 2025
Making 3-pointers is something that had been worryingly absent from the two most recent USU games. In wins over Weber State and UTEP, the Aggies had made just nine total 3-pointers. Toss in the 2-for-9 start against Tulane and Utah State had made just 11 of its last 55 triples when the players walked off the court for the mid-game break. Calhoun had previously shared his confidence that the team would eventually burst from that cold spell, but seeing the players finally pull through is much better than repeatedly promising it would eventually happen.
“At the end of the day the round ball’s got to go in the basket, right?” Calhoun said. “I was happy for our players. I know how hard they work at it. They don’t want to miss. I mean, it’s not like they’re purposely missing. So to have a bunch of threes go in, I thought it was really good for our team’s confidence.”
Getting those 3-pointers falling was one huge key, but limiting turnovers and getting great ball movement were two other keys Calhoun emphasized with his team. Prior to the game he noted the Aggies’ assist-to-turnover ratio of 29-22 in the Weber State/UTEP games. It was not a number he was happy with, but Utah State made up for it by recording 24 assists to just 10 turnovers. It’s the highest assist total since the season-opener against Westminster and the second-best assist-to-turnover ratio of the season, also second to the Westminster win.
Calhoun praised Drake Allen’s role in the flow of the offense. The graduate point guard played just 25 minutes in his return from a sprained ankle last week that held him out against UTEP. However, his eight assists, along with a solid seven points (and zero turnovers) were crucial to the Aggies’ success Friday afternoon, something Calhoun wanted to emphasize to the fans.
“Without Drake getting eight assist and running our team, we’re not scoring 96 points,” Calhoun said. “He means a lot to this basketball team. I’ve said it all along. He’s been our most steady leader. He really defends. He really passes. Just a gutsy effort.”
The biggest scoring punch of the day came jointly from Falslev and MJ Collins, the former scoring a season-best 24 points and the latter tallying 21. And while Collins has seen high scoring numbers already this season, with Friday being his third 20-point game of the year, Falslev had yet to break out in the way fans and the coaching staff had been expecting. Outside of his 18 points against VCU, the junior guard hadn’t gone over 10 points in the early goings of the season. His 24 points on Friday, to go with seven rebounds and four steals, represented the version of Falslev everyone anticipated all offseason.
“It’s the reason we paid him all the money, to be honest with you. He’s one of the highest paid guys in the Mountain West. It’s the reason we worked our tail off to fundraise to keep him. It’s the reason our fan base stepped up and kept him in Cache Valley, hopefully for the remainder of his career,” Calhoun said. “I never lost faith in him. I mean, it’s an early season. If you’ll remember last year, he did the same thing. He came out of the gate, struggled, and then he went to the MTE and put on a show. So he’s off to a good start.”
Along with Falslev and Collins’ scoring efforts, Utah State also got big pushes from Kolby King (16 points, including four made threes) and Garry Clark (11 points, six rebounds).
The offensive explosion from Utah State was one thing, but what turned the afternoon into a 21-point victory was that offense paired with timely defense. Tulane ended the day shooting 50% from three, but that hides a crucial cold spell the Green Wave went through in the middle portion of the game.
From the 4:45 mark of the first half to the 9:18 point of the second half, Tulane went 1-for-7 on 3-pointers. Outside of that span of game time, the Green Wave shot a blistering 14 of 23, but those roughly 15 minutes where they went cold was long enough for Utah State to take full control. The score at the start of this stretch was 36-30 for Tulane, but by the end Utah State led 71-53. And with the Aggies never cooling off the entire second half, the string of shots the Green Wave put together to finish the half had little impact on the outcome of the game.
Utah State will play on Sunday for its next game, which will be against Davidson. The format of the Charleston Classic is for the winners of the two games in the Lowcountry bracket to face each other at 7 p.m. MT. Davidson defeated Boston College 59-49 in a game that took place right after the USU/Tulane matchup. Just like the Aggies, the Wildcats are undefeated so far this season, sitting at 5-0.
